28 THE COW 



The cow and the horse have different methods 

 of accomplishing the same end. The horse must 

 not be allowed to fill himself with water after a 

 long hot day in the fields lest he get indigestion, 

 but the over-heated ox refuses water untU cooled 

 off. 



Both animals have specially adapted organs for 

 grazing but quite unlike. The cow has thick and 

 relatively immovable lips, but she has a tongue 

 which she can protrude far out of her mouth and 

 she uses this as a sort of sweeping organ to grasp 

 and gather the grass and pull it into her mouth. 

 She can use it as skillfully and daintily as an 

 elephant uses his trunk. The tongue of the horse 

 has no special adaptability in this regard but he 

 is furnished with a prehensile upper lip that is a 

 marvel of sensitiveness and delicacy and that per- 

 mits him to pick up and bring to the mouth single 

 kernels of grain in a way that seems almost in- 

 credible. Oows have front teeth on the lower jaw 

 only with a tough cartilagenous pad above; in 

 grazing their food is torn or pulled off rather than 

 bitten off. The cow does this by seizing the grass 

 and then pulling it off by a forward motion of the 

 head, that is, she "eats away from her self," while 

 the horse grazes by a backward pull — eats "toward 

 himself." 



Cattle eat rapidly and swallow the food with 

 little chewing, relying mainly on subsequent mas- 

 tication. As soon as she is satisfactorily filled and 



